


Never Could Get Drunk Enough

by Fenris13



Category: Supernatural
Genre: (I am so sorry), Angst, Character Death, Drinking, Inspired by Music, Leviathan - Freeform, M/M, Pre-Slash, Sad, Whiskey Lullaby, season 7
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-04
Updated: 2012-10-04
Packaged: 2017-11-15 14:28:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/528291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fenris13/pseuds/Fenris13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was times like now, when he was drunk but quiet, perfectly willing to leave this bar that made Sam feel tired.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Never Could Get Drunk Enough

Dean was drunk again. There were some days after a hunt that Sam would find Dean at the local bar, drinking his liver to death, and he would refuse to leave. Sam would have to grab his arm and drag him out while Dean shouted curses and generally made a scene; though a scene that went unnoticed, it was a bar after all. But Sam would be able to get him back to the motel and back into bed and that would be that. It was times like now, when he was drunk but quiet, perfectly willing to leave this bar that made Sam feel tired.

“C’mon, Dean. You've had enough.”

Dean downs one last shot.

“Yeah. I really have, Sammy.” His voice is thick.

Dean unsteadily stalks out the door like it was his idea and climbs into the passenger seat of the Impala, a warning sign if Sam ever saw one. At the best of times, when Dean leaves willingly, he’ll insist on driving and Sam has to remind him that he’ll crash the Impala in his state. Dean will grumble about it, but he’ll scoot over anyway and hopefully pass out against the window. Sam climbs carefully into the driver’s seat, starts the car, and peels away from the bar and back to the motel. Dean doesn't fall asleep. The ride is silent and oppressive.

When he stops the car, Dean is out and at the door to their room before Sam can cut the engine. He’s still fumbling with the room key, leaning heavily against the door when Sam catches up to him.

“You know what really, really, _really_ bites, Sam?” Dean said, punctuating each word with a harsh jam at the lock, finally getting it open on the last try. He lurches into the room and chucks the key onto his bed before collapsing there himself. Sam doesn't answer but Dean keeps talking, smiling up at Sam with empty eyes.

“He loved me. He,” As Dean sits up Sam doesn't have to ask who, _“fucking loved me,_ Sam. He fucking said as much.”

Sam stares at a random point on the checkered, puke-colored carpet. It was startling and abrupt, how quickly Dean broke this time. If he hadn't passed out in the car, he’d usually skirt around it, never quite saying it but always implying, and now he was blunt and to the point. This was both old and new information to Sam—old in that he already knew, new in that Dean was telling him so.

“Dean…” Sam said quietly. Dean’s not listening.

“What the hell am I supposed to do with that, huh? What the _fuck._ Am I supposed to do with that, Sam?”

His brother buries his face in his hands, and slumped over as he is, clothes disheveled and reeking of alcohol, he is the very picture of dismay. Sam takes a deep breath, and certain that he isn't supposed to answer, gets a glass of water and some aspirin, sets it on Dean’s night stand for the morning because he’ll forget, he always does, and goes to take a shower. The hot water pounds down on him like a drum, a steady rhythm of hard then soft pressure, and he lets himself remember Castiel.

When they found him—or rather, when _Dean_ found him—he’d been Emmanuel. A man with no past and a wife, and sometimes Sam spared a moment to feel sorry for her, for a husband she won’t ever get back and had never really known. They left him at the hospital, full of Sam’s crazy, and Sam knew Dean was so eager to leave him behind, so eager when they’d just _found him_ again, because it cut Dean to see Cas so broken, to see him after all that he’d done. Then they’d uncovered the Word of God, found themselves another prophet, and Cas had woken up.

Cas got them the angel blood, they got themselves the Alpha blood, but then everything went sideways before they even had a chance to talk to Crowley. Cas didn't like conflict—“Don’t like conflict,” _flutter, CRACK_ —but he didn’t like to see Dean dead even more. He’d come to their aid when it had them cornered, and provided distraction enough for Sam to douse it in cleaner then lop off its head, but in the end it didn't matter. Leviathan trumps angel.

Black ooze dribbled from Castiel’s smiling lips and his eyes began to glow blue, a brighter blue than they were before, the tell-tale blue of an angel’s grace, and Cas rested his palm on Dean’s cheek while he cradled the fallen angel in his arms.

“Cas, Cas, Cas, don’t do this to me, don’t do this you son of a bitch, you hang on Cas, you do not get to die, _you do not get to—”_ Dean babbled.

“I’m sorry Dean Winchester,” He’d said. “And I love you very much. Close your eyes.”

Castiel shone as he died, bright as the sun, the light pouring out of his mouth from behind a sad, broken smile, and Sam heard his brother scream another name in anguish, like he had so long ago before angels and leviathans and the Devil, the first time Sam had died at the hands of Jake and Azazel. Things had been simpler then.

_“Cas!”_

Sam turns off the water. It had grown cold without his noticing and now he shivers as he reaches for a towel. When he leaves the bathroom, Dean is lying on his side and Sam assumes he is asleep. He grabs clothes from his bag and puts them on, about to turn off the light when Dean speaks again.

“That’s not even the best part, Sam.” Sam turns to look at Dean. He’s staring up at the ceiling, and his face is like marble, hard and cold.

“Wanna know what the best part is?” Dean’s voice is light. Casual. Wrong.

“No.”

“I think I might have loved him too.” His voice doesn’t break on the ‘too’. “Isn’t that funny Sam?” Sam counts the tears as they fall, one, two—

“Isn’t that,” three, four, five, “just so,” six, seven, eight, “Goddamn,” nine, ten, _“funny?”_

 

\----------

 

They’d burned the body, but Dean still had the coat. He’d pulled it once from the water of the reservoir, cursing his name and folding it, gingerly, like it wasn’t real when he wasn’t wearing it. When he gave it back Dean had never thought he’d ever have to pick it up again. He was wrong.

Sometimes at night, when the darkness was too thick, and Sam was sleeping like the de—like a log, he’d pull it from of the back of the Impala and shake it out, clutching the torn, stained fabric in his lap. He’d expected it to smell like him, like ozone and mist, cold ice and newly cut grass. He was wrong again. It was only fabric and aftershave, nothing like the angel and everything like the man. So Dean would put it away, folding it, gingerly, like it wasn’t real when he wasn’t wearing it, and go back inside and try to fall asleep without dreaming.

**Author's Note:**

> This is set sometime near the end of Season 7, though it differs from canon dramatically. I didn't really mean to write this, but I was listening to music at ten o' clock last night, the first mistake, and Whiskey Lullaby came on and it went downhill from there. Way, way downhill. I blame all the sad fics I've been reading recently. I need more fluff in my life, but you can only reread 'Peanut Butter-Pumpkin Wedding Cake' so many times.


End file.
